Akashi Uzumaki

Three weeks later

During the past weeks,

With the push of the old Mikami, the Uchiha of the young generation of the clan continuously challenged Akashi in a duel.

Every day, he was challenged by many eager young kids who attempted to prove themselves by defeating the red demon, as they started to call him.

Of course, they were all defeated by Akashi.

Some members of the older generation of his and other factions in the clan wanted to intervene by sending older Uchiha kids but the elder Mikami stopped them.

And made sure that no kid older than twelve years could challenge Akashi.

After enough fighting, they had now a pretty good understanding of Akashi's strength which was about Jonnin's level.

As the most powerful clan of Konoha, they had a few geniuses that had already reached the level of jonnin and that they felt could defeat Akashi.

Unfortunately, all those geniuses were older than twelve.

In one of the meeting room

"Sir we need to do something, this kid is humiliating us," 

"It has been three weeks now and none of the kids managed to defeat him," 

"This is a shame for the Uchiha clan,"

"The civilians are starting to laugh at us on the streets because of the Uzumaki kid,"

For some of the civilians, the situation became more like a source of entertainment than anything else some people even started to place bets in the fights.

"Same for the other clans they are starting to think that are superior to us because the kids can manage to defeat the Uzumaki kid," 

"And the Hokage and their advisors are making things worse, last time we noticed a few suspicious individuals stoking the fire even more, encouraging the villagers to laugh at us, we managed to find that they were people of Elder Danzo," 

"They don't even hide it anymore,"

Mikami was seated peacefully listening to the complaint of his clansmen with a frow.

Veins could be seen popping from his temples due to the anger and exasperation he was feeling.

"Silence!" he finally shouted. 

"Of course, the Hokage and his advisors are trying to undermine us this is who they are, and don't tell me that you really think that sending older kids to defeat Akashi is the right solution, it would just give them more ammunition against us, imagine what they will say, the mighty Uchiha clan bullying kids," 

The rant of the old man made of them realize that sending older kids to fight Akashi wouldn't solve their predicament and could instead make it worse.

"S-so, what do we do?" someone asked softly in a barely audible voice.

The eyes of everyone turned to Mikami who took a deep breath before regaining his calm. 

"Send the kids to fight of course," he said looking at them as if the solution was obvious.

"But we already sent them, and they can't defeat Akashi," 

"Yes, that's true," 

They started to murmur between them 

"I mean the other clans!" 

"Send the kids to challenge the kids of the other clans who are disrespectful, those who are insulting us," 

In those words, a lightbulb seems to light us in the mind of the Uchiha present.

"Of course!"

In Konoha and all the other ninjas' villages, fighting and challenging each other is common; it's part of being a ninja. This process was also common for the Uchiha kids.

But since they started to fight Akashi and lose against him, everyone from the kids to the elders focused all their attention on him to regain their honor,

It created a vicious circle: the more they lost to him, the more obsessed they became with defeating him. 

"Didn't you notice!" the old man said attracting their attention 

"Since they started to fight Akashi the kids became more focused, and dedicated to their training, which helped them become stronger."

At that, the people in the room started to reflect 

"That's true, nearly every time my son comes back from school he gets right back to training,"

"Same with mine," 

"My son is now nearly at the chunin level, I was sure he would take a lot longer," 

"Mine no longer complain, even though the training regiment is harder than before,"

"You too up the training level,"

"..."

The Uchiha parents started to coach and train their children even more before sending them to fight Akashi.

Looking at his clansmen with a little smile.

"Look I know that the situation seems bleak right now but there it isn't all bad, so stop panicking and shouting like your kids, the dove faction is probably not going to do anything major and Danzo will still smear us, but we can reverse the tendency if you do as we planned,"

Those words managed to calm the Uchiha, and they started to feel even more respect and appreciation for the old man.

"What about that Uzumaki devil, do have a solution for him," someone asked 

"Devil!" Mikami said looking at the man with some anger. 

They gulp feeling the temperature in the room drop,

"That's true he is kind of a little devil, but don't say that you already hate him or are you jealous of his strength like the Hokage and his advisors are afraid of our strength," 

At that those words the Uchiha in the room started to feel uncomfortable 

"And you dare to call yourself Uchiha, a clan who value and respect strength and who strive to be stronger, this is how we arrived where we are,"

"Ha," He sighed deeply before responding to the man's words

"Yes, I have already prepared for the kid, now go back to your houses and start what we discuss." With that Mikami got up and started to leave the meeting, leaving the rest of the Uchiha of his faction setting there.

"What a deception! go away!" 

Seeing the old man leaving the room while shaking his head they started to feel some sense of shame in their bones. 

**** 

The next day 

A few Uchiha kids were walking in the street when 

"Hey, look at them still walking around as they own the street," a few clan kids said as they sneered together. 

"Did you get you as beat up again!?"

"Bunch of losers!" one of them named Shimura Denji said 

"Ahaha"

Seeing that the Uchiha kids stopped and started to walk toward them.

"What? Think we are afraid of you!"

"You are Shimura Denji, twelve-year-old chunin, right?" the Uchiha asked 

"Yes, what about that?"

"You are a real genius huh, good, I Kegaya Uchiha challenge you to fight right now training ground number eight," 

"I'm Mirai Uchiha, I challenge you genin Yoma," 

"Same here!"

Following the first challenge, the others Uchiha followed suit challenging all of them.

"And- And why would we do that?"

"We are busy"

"We have some training to do"

At that one of the friends said 

DEnji wanted to smack him but just settled for throwing a cold glare in the guy's direction.

"Training is perfect, let's take it as training unless you scared little Shimura," 

"Are you going to call your daddy," 

"You were talking big a few seconds ago," Looking toward the people that had gathered. 

"You can just admit defeat right now and show everyone how much of a bitch you are," 

"That's it you I'm going to beat you up, the blasted Uchiha," 

"Try me,"

With that, they all moved toward the training 

The same kind of things started to play out all over Konoha.

In the last month, even though there were conflicts the Uchiha were encouraged to ignore them and to focus their energy on training to defeat Akashi.

But now they were free to unleash their anger toward those that had mocked them for nearly a month.

In just a day hundreds of challenges were issued by the Uchiha. 

Usually, civilians wouldn't be authorized to observe the ninjas fighting and training as it could be used by the other villages who could use it to their advantage.

The only moments that things like that were authorized were during the chunin exam where they would have the opportunity to eliminate to talented young ninjas of the other nations.

But to use them against the Uchiha they had been authorized to see the fights or more precisely the defeat of the Uchiha against Akashi.

Today Mikami was using the same method.

Nearly all the training ground had crowds of civilians ready to observe the spectacles.

The bets were already on.

"Go ahead and beat him up Shimura Denji I bet on you,"

"You can do that Kegaya Uchiha," 

"Go ahead Mirai, you are so beautiful!"

While the civilians were cheering the ninjas were mostly hiding observing everything coldly.

"I wonder if we should organize things like that at home, a good way to make money, the others noble would be thrilled. I should have placed my bets too!"

Akashi said looking all around at the crowd gathered around him.

"Yes, you should, because I did,"

"You seem pretty confident for someone who has already been defeated just a month ago Iruma Uchiha," Akashi said as his katana appeared in his hands as he looked at his cousin who was looking straight at him with his three tomoe Sharingan on full display.

"I trained a lot!" he responded 

"Then let's see what you can do,"

****

A/N: Hope that you like the chapter.